Every person deserves the same opportunities.

This I believe with everything inside me.

Whether I'm gay or whether I'm straight.

Regardless of if I think gods are real or fake.

No matter if I'm black, white, yellow or red.

I deserve a place to rest my head.

Equality should be given to everyone.

For we're all burned by the same sun.

We'll end up the same when the race is run.

And if we're not all made equal, we've only begun

the war towards equality, it's far from won.

We've got time and more time until there's none.

And we're done.

but we must be equal,

before we're done,

for if we're not,

we've only just begun.

I lie so life seems more surmountable.

I pretend that I'm okay so I'll feel okay.

I tell myself that someday things will be different.

But they're just lies at the end of the day.

I fool others with reassurances I wish I meant

I fake a smile so no one else can see

that I'm falling apart on the inside.

I lie so they don't see the broken me.

"Wait, come back, this isn't mine!" I screamed after the mailman as he ran the other way with a look of sheer terror on his face. Looking back, I guess it wasn't my finest moment, standing there in my underwear and a t-shirt, fresh out of the shower with a towel still wrapped around my head, but I can't imagine that would send the mailman running away screaming.

“Are you okay?” I hear someone a voice whisper.

It comes from inside of my head.

Because there’s no one here to hold my hand,

here in the darkness I’ve fled.

“Do you need help?” The voice asks me,

and though I’m sure that I do.

I tell them I’m fine, just so they'll leave my side.

I can't bear to break them too.

"You're broken" whispers my own voice

I know this, it just must be true.

For there's no other explination

for my heart all battered and bruised.

America the Beautiful

That’s what they sing.

stripes red white and blue

that waves in the wind.

America the broken

that’s what I see.

We’ve been left a country

in need of fixing.

The land of the free

and the home of the brave,

has never ending stories

of lifes we must save.

America tried

and we must keep trying.

because each life, it matters

and they just keep dying.

At the hands of our protectors

or so they keep saying.

Who are they protecting?

Those killed or those killing?

America the Beautiful,

I cry out to you.

We cannot yet settle

for bruised black and blue.

We need to rebuild,

to fix what’s been broken.

So that those who come next

have a country before them.